Early Game Problems

[cavebear]

I've discovered, in MP play, that I seem less adept than others at getting out of the early game with momentum. I build my first couple of cities, establish warriors (to have martial law and some barb protection), build settlers, then more warriors in the new cities. Meanwhile, I am teching through to monarchy well.

I get to Monarchy with about a dozen cities, manned by warriors, phalanxes, an occasional archer, temples, and libraries. Sometimes, a Wonder (GW, or pyramids, or MP).

Then I seem to bog down... Though I've maintained a balance of of squares for trade and food and shields, I seem to little going in any of them. My advance rate gets up to 10 turns, and a typical city is generating about 1 surplus food, 3 shields, 4 trade, and 3 beakers. I'm placing the cities well to get good resource squares (whales, pheasants, wine).

I don't have the happiness or shield support to go to Republic, I start to fall behind in research, and my population is growing too slowly (or even stagnant). I find it hard to get a good shield production city going (for Wonders), because that's usually the source of much of the trade squares that drive the research rate.

Obviously, I'm missing some point of balance or focus in my development. Are my cities too similar? Am I wasting resources on one of the basic returns (shields, food, trade, science) that I could do well to de-emphasize? The powergraph is still putting me at the top or close to it (I know, that doesn't mean much), but it must mean the position has some potential...

Can anyone help identify my difficulty? I can email a current game that shows this quite clearly. I will certainly be checking this thread!

[DaveV]

I've never played MP, but I've sure practiced early-game expansion a lot.

Twelve cities under monarchy is a nice number - one more, and you'll start seeing very unhappy citizens. I would recommend waiting on your temples and libraries, and instead concentrate on building those twelve cities as fast as possible. You'll see more payback in science by building two new cities (2-3 arrows each) than a library (one, maybe two, extra beakers). You should be able to keep your cities happy with martial law during the settler production phase. If you ever do go Republican, it's important to have all your cities about the same size and level of development for WLY.

Also, you don't mention any horse units. I think exploration is critical to success - you'll find those good city sites, and may pick up some goodies from huts. It's also supremely important to know where your neighbors are.

[Ming]

cavebear...

TRADE ARROWS... TRADE ARROWS... TRADE ARROWS
Unless you have fallen behind, and want to turn into a warmonger, production shields and food should be notched down in favor of trade squares. (Ok, one city produces wonders)

Yes, exploration and expansion are a must, but concentrate more on trade arrows. Micromanage those early cities.

City size will grow fast once in early Republic, or when you get to Democracy and start celebrating WLYD's. But to do early republic, you need a happiness wonder, temples, marketplace, and maybe more if you want to take advantage of it.

TRADE TRADE TRADE...

Include trade as a high priority. Start building those caravans. Besides helping with wonders... trade routes are key. They give you science beakers and money... and the money can buy improvements, or other civs cities.

Don't worry about production and food... they take care of themselves in the long run.
Remember, you can always buy things if you have the money

[mumba]

First of all, you want to make sure that you have good cities sites to build on. I usually look for plains with shields or special squares such as whales,corn etc. You want to build lots of settlers early in the game to build more cities and start irragating, building roads around your cities. You have the right idea of getting monarcy but it doesn't have to be your top priority. Getting Horesback riding will help you explore new land and bronzeworking will get you better defense. Good luck.

[johnmcd]

Yeah, Ming is right. I'm not convinced of the worth of caravans though, but everyone else is and I've learnt to keep quiet about it. I would suggest alot more than a dozen cities though. I don't feel happy if I have less than about forty. With a just a dozen you absolutely must build improvements as nary a shield should be wasted on something so transient as a soldier. With alot of cities though you can safely build enough troops to go on little campigns, or just distribute around your other towns to be sure of your defenses.

[cavebear]

Thanks for the great replies! I should add some details...

I'm looking at the period of about 800 BC to 1 AD. I'm looking at 1x1x food and production. I'm certainly building cities as fast as possible. Given the barb attacks on established cities and settlers looking for new sites, I don't see how to get them much faster.

I try to place my cities on grassland with gold (and on rivers when available), but perhaps I have been allowing too many forest sites in return for the resource squares, though. Food is always a problem with those.

Ming - I have been dedicating workers to ocean sites for the 2 trade, but the single food production is killing my growth. I use better trade squares when available. Building settlers in size 2 cities is difficult in that situation. My research advancement seems to slow when I have warriors/phalanx in each size 2 city (the barb archers/legions wipe me out if I don't have at least that).

I don't let me initial cities get beyond size 3. I'm building settlers as soon as they get to 2.

You are right about the caravans. I haven't been using them early. I still don't have a good understanding about the benefits (I'm afraid that I am still playing more intuitively than mathematically - I don't have good records showing me specific benefits).

Mumba - Should I be building ON or NEAR resource squares? I've been choosing sites centered among several resources, thinking of the long-term benefits. Perhaps I should be building ON the major resource squares?

DaveV - Thanks for the advice on the libraries. I thought they were major science -builders! I hate to see my income going to their support, but I thought that was the best return.

I haven't been too concerned about early exploration. I've learned that finding goody huts is a 2 edged sword; the techs you get seem to affect which options you get in the research tree. Besides, I seem to lose units to goody-hut barbs to often. Some people recommend never exploring the goody huts in the early game for that reason.

John - Are you building overlapping cities? The idea of sharing military units suggests so. I haven't been able to make that work because the good sites are not very close together. Can you give me some further ideas along that line? It would certainly reduce my wasted shields in monarchy, though, having the cities closer together.

[ottok]

Cavebear.
if you can find neigphours that are unvisible you. Make these trust you. and exchange the maps, some time, next turns they think that is you their allieds.

If their is Expansive and acresive, they maybe find it, with you best calibre peace partern. But anyway, if you wait the wars, long wars allied these...
Army, rich, techs and of course the allies helps you at all crisis( almost)!

[geofelt]

If you have a dozen cities before you get monarchy, something's wrong. Set science to the max, and luxuries to zero early. Research directly to monarchy if you can. You should be close to monarchy at five cities. In fact, don't build more if you are in despotism(unrest will hurt), build roads instead.
To stop barbarians, there are three approaches. 1) build horsemen as defenders, planning on attacking the barbs. 2) build a barracks in a high production city, and then use it to build vet phalanx defenders for all. 3) Send the defender away from any city you can't defend. If the barbs take it, build a dip and bribe it back, or pay 50 gold or so to send them away(spend down your gold to 100 or less first)
Don't build libraries too early, I wait until a city is producing 6 beakers. Don't build marketplaces before the city produces 6 trade, it doesn't pay earlier.
---luck---